CLEARFIELD – Senior citizens in the Clearfield area will have an extra special Christmas this year, thanks to the community’s generosity.
At Thursday’s Clearfield Borough Council work session, Police Sergeant Nathan Curry gave an update on this year’s “Giving Tree” project.
Curry said he had predicted that this year’s “Giving Tree” would be bigger and better than ever and the community did not disappoint.
Curry said all the tags have gone out and the response had been so successful that the Clearfield County Area Agency on Aging had to refill the tree several times.
He said organizations, such as ABATE, and businesses, such as XPO of Woodland and PennDOT also took tags to fill. He said the seniors who are the recipients of the gifts are going to get a lot more than they had planned.
Curry said that while the tags have been taken, monetary donations for the heating assistance program are still being collected by CBT Bank.
Curry said the heating assistance donations have been extremely generous this year. He said as of last week, about $5,700 had been deposited in the account, but he anticipates that amount will increase.
Curry said in previous years, the money had been divided equally among the seniors in the heating assistance program. He said previously, the seniors had received between $80-90. This year, Curry anticipates the seniors will be receiving around $200 each.
“Our seniors will be kept very warm this winter and I’d like to thank the community. They did it and it’s going to be very well appreciated,” Curry said.
According to previously published GANT News articles, last year’s Giving Tree provided a special Christmas for about 147 senior citizens in Clearfield and the surrounding areas.
Over 400 tags were on the tree and the response had been so overwhelming that more tags were added. The “Giving Tree” program was started in 2015 as a collaboration among the police department, the Clearfield County Area Agency on Aging, CVS Pharmacy and Clearfield Pharmacy & Gift Shoppe.
